If your ears have channel imbalance, your brain would compensate and you wouldn't notice in most cases. Although, in normal life you have natural cross feed enabling the other ear to fill in missing information, not the case with 'phones most of the time. So yes, phones might expose this even with your brain adjusting.

OTOH, maybe you should check whether you have a temporary problem of some sort in one ear., e.g. dare I suggest a mild infection?

Thanks for mentioning the Head-Fit plugin! I had not heard of this one and will be reading through the thread I've found about it (the thread with Leeperry's growing enthusiasm for Head-Fit).

Quote:

Originally Posted by SP Wild

I am finding that Head-Fit as recommended by Leeperry to have the best sound quality from an audiophile point of view, it is more transparent than the J river one. It doesn't expand the stage as big as J River, but it does snap the soundstage in place and proper imaging.

If your ears have channel imbalance, your brain would compensate and you wouldn't notice in most cases. Although, in normal life you have natural cross feed enabling the other ear to fill in missing information, not the case with 'phones most of the time. So yes, phones might expose this even with your brain adjusting.

OTOH, maybe you should check whether you have a temporary problem of some sort in one ear., e.g. dare I suggest a mild infection?

My LCD2 pads are definitely different thickness, and this definitely exacerbates any channel imabalance inherent in my physiology, which is a skewed jaw from where it hinges, affects every circumaural headphone. This is normal though for right handed people with a heart in the left. I can minimise the difference by positioning and centering my jaw. Still a pad upgrade is on the list of things to do.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4nradio

Thanks for mentioning the Head-Fit plugin! I had not heard of this one and will be reading through the thread I've found about it (the thread with Leeperry's growing enthusiasm for Head-Fit).

I downloaded the latest Isone speaker simulator as recommended by Lunatique, the new one seems to be af a higher quality audio than the older one. Well worth getting and is far more impressive than other room simulation DSPs like the one standard ones in J River. The new one is free but won't allow you to save presets until it is paid for, but there are so many presets to choose from - awesome stuff.

I find it very addictive and going back to normal headphone staging you never quite achieve the effect that the audio engineers intended for you to hear.

I like exploring these DSP's as it gives me another insight into the recording process. For sheer transparency, the purist approach isn't beaten yet. Everything off for a direct injection of the data in the CD piped straight down the ears is still of the highest quality, but that was never the original intent in most cases. Pick your poison, with my R1s both poisons are quite amazing.

I am finding that Head-Fit as recommended by Leeperry to have the best sound quality from an audiophile point of view, it is more transparent than the J river one. It doesn't expand the stage as big as J River, but it does snap the soundstage in place and proper imaging.

I was using this, and noticed that the soundstage on my LCD2s were below me to the right, I play with positioning to center the stage and find that my earpads are not even and is skewering the stage. The right pad is shallower than the left, my earlobe just touches the felt on the right but I need to compress the foam a fair bit on the left for it to do the same. This makes a vast improvement when they are equal - the image and stage is centered.

That's poor QC. My one definitely suffers from channel imbalance, not from the drivers, from the earpads. Can't go back, must get new pads.

Audeze might be offering some new ear pads and headband solution in the very near future.

I finally broke down and called Audeze a second time yesterday to ask what the heck was going on. He said they'd be looking at them and I said I wanted to know what was wrong with them. 20 minutes later I get a FedEx notice that they shipped. I wonder if they finished them and forgot to send them out. Just my gut feeling.

I finally broke down and called Audeze a second time yesterday to ask what the heck was going on. He said they'd be looking at them and I said I wanted to know what was wrong with them. 20 minutes later I get a FedEx notice that they shipped. I wonder if they finished them and forgot to send them out. Just my gut feeling

Here's hoping you get a new pair for all your troubles. Regardless, need impressions of the returned unit.

Without a doubt if I were to somehow acquire the LCD-3 without having to pay $2K for them! But $1K is my limit for sanity with headphones and $2K is where I start my lust for entry level speakers. Anyway I have a feeling that the LCD-3 is not yet a fully completed design and that further refinements will be discovered and implemented to it as manufacturing of the LCD-3 reveals the not yet discovered secrets. Either it will lead to a LCD-3 r.2 because of this or to the LCD-4. Even if the LCD-3 were closer to the LCD-2 in price I would still wait a long while until the manufacturing of the LCD-3 was proven to be solid and flawless. As it stands now it is a new process and a new design and has yet to stand the rigors of manufacturing and field testing.

Shame you're not getting them. I may not agree with some of your views, but your presence as the resident guardian of the LCD2 thread is quite enlivening.

$2K for phones used to bother me but no more. Acclimation I guess. $5K for the Stax bugs me but I'd do it if they were really spectacular. My lust for speakers is more along the $15K plus area. I'm still rather spend even $10K on a killer phone system since with Wife/Kids I could spend $$ on a big rig but why bother. I'm always getting interrupted during a listening session on the BR. It comes w/the territory so the phones are a perfect solution for me. I can setup camp wherever I want in the house and get all the session time I want without having to bug everyone to alter their lives!

It's not so much the price of the 3's that bothers me, it doesn't really, I've spent nearly twice that much on speaker cables alone without blinking. It's the way they do business that has turned me away. Meanwhile the LCD-2 still provide excellent sound.

Blinkety-blink movement disorder caused by speaker cable purchases in the absence of blinking

Quote:

Originally Posted by WarriorAnt

It's not so much the price of the 3's that bothers me, it doesn't really, I've spent nearly twice that much on speaker cables alone without blinking. It's the way they do business that has turned me away. Meanwhile the LCD-2 still provide excellent sound.

I recently acquired an LCD-2 r2 and started listening to it just today - as in, less than an hour ago.

Going from memory of the r1 (which I previously owned for several months earlier in the year), to me the r2 sounds as if it might have more treble quantity and slightly more clarity - but this is just a guess from memory which obviously isn't reliable.

I'm using the r2 in balanced mode with the Moon Audio Silver Dragon v2 XLR on the HeadAmp GS-X, Analysis Plus Silver Oval XLR ICs, and Plinius CD-101 - the exact same setup that I had for the r1.

So far my impressions of the r2 are that it doesn't fix any of the issues that I had with the r1 - my issues with the r1 can be read in a comparison review I wrote earlier in the year. Still sounds very good though, just not nearly as amazing as my electrostatic reference (OII/BHSE). There's also something weirdly off-putting about the sound but I can't quite put a finger on what it is yet....

My LCD2 classics still amaze me like the first time. Its rare to be able to sit down and listen to music, but when I do, despite owning them for over a year, I realise I still haven't played all my favorite tracks on them! So I'm still discovering new things every time I put them on!

Yeah OK, so I'm the only one still raving about the classics long after everyone moved on to the R2s, and now the LCD3s...sigh...

I recently acquired an LCD-2 r2 and started listening to it just today - as in, less than an hour ago.

Going from memory of the r1 (which I previously owned for several months earlier in the year), to me the r2 sounds as if it might have more treble quantity and slightly more clarity - but this is just a guess from memory which obviously isn't reliable.

I'm using the r2 in balanced mode with the Moon Audio Silver Dragon v2 XLR on the HeadAmp GS-X, Analysis Plus Silver Oval XLR ICs, and Plinius CD-101 - the exact same setup that I had for the r1.

So far my impressions of the r2 are that it doesn't fix any of the issues that I had with the r1 - my issues with the r1 can be read in a comparison review I wrote earlier in the year. Still sounds very good though, just not nearly as amazing as my electrostatic reference (OII/BHSE). There's also something weirdly off-putting about the sound but I can't quite put a finger on what it is yet....